PHOTO ESSAY
The beauty of life all around us needs to be admired. The subject for my photo essay is just that. It is admiration because sometimes life is flowing so fast at a constant cycle that we don't get even a second to sit and admire the beauty that surrounds us. I took the majority of my photos in the courtyard at my high school and one of the photos at my work when the sun was setting. I selected the school because the courtyard is a place we get very limited time with as students. We are restricted from going out there so when we are able to there is so many things to admire just within that small space. I also chose my work because I spend a majority of my time there and when it is a slow night, just like the night I captured that photo of the sky, it is easy to just look out the window and admire the world we live in. Im trying to portray that to find the beauty within yourself you need to first find the beauty within the world and people around you. Which relates to the saying "you can't make someone else happy endless you are happy yourself." Visually I believe that my photos captured my topic because there is so many different types of flowers, colors, and quantities of flowers within the photo. That is important to my topic because there is so many different things in the world, so many different colors, and so many different quantities and abundances of life around us. I arranged my photos in a sequence based off of meaning. I started off with one rose because we all have one anchor in our life that keeps us going. What I mean by an anchor is basically something that keeps us motivated and helps us open up the path to our life. Then I put a photo with a few different flowers and one that is partially open to show that there are many things in this world that we could use as an anchor. The one that lies open in front of us is usually our own anchor and the ones on the side closed is ready to bloom and open for someone else. Once we completely open our anchor, like the flower in the third photo, we have an easier sense of navigating through our life. We then meet people who feel the same way which what photo number four represents with multiple flowers bloomed and open. Photo number five, six, seven, and eight all come together to show that there are many people and things out there, many people and things we know of and many people and things we don't yet know. What matters the most to yourself as an individual though is that you have your focus on your life and the objects and people within it. This is because everyone that is meant to be in your life will be, either you've known them your whole life or you have yet to meet them, which is what photo nine represents. Lastly, photo 10 represents the admiration of the whole world around us and how we are such a small part of such a big place. We need to be able to sit back and admire the world around us to help us be able to find our anchor, be able to meet people, and to be able to be the best version of ourselves. The strongest photo within my series is photo nine, not only due to the meaning of focusing in on your own life individually, but also due to the visual components. This meaning the color of the green and white flowers, the lighting and brightness, as well as the focus of the flower up close and the blur within the background, which is a shallow depth of field. Editing this photo I used a slight filter as well as adjusting the vibrance, saturation, and cropping it. My view point when taking this photo was straight on, it was on a bright sunny day which also helped with the lighting. I used the macro camera and set my ISO to 100.